


Homework

by SilverMoon53



Series: Silver's Summer '18 Fic-a-thon [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Gen, Homework, Late night talks, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Slice of Life, after pidges gender reveal, angsty slice of life, but hes lance thats what he does, but like, i mean lance flirts with her for like two lines, lance joins her, pidge cant sleep so she does earth homework in space, pidge is good with computers and schoolwork and technology but lance is good with people, platonic plance, sleepy chats, takes place sometime in season one, they chat, this is strictly platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 22:28:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15034667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMoon53/pseuds/SilverMoon53
Summary: It's 3AM (or whatever the space equivalent is) and Pidge can't sleep. Luckily she brought some homework with her.





	Homework

As much as she loved the solitude of her bunk, Pidge had to admit there is a certain charm to the shared living room type area. It was spacious, and the crater in the middle with the seats managed to be cozy without feeling exposed. The lights were dim at this point in the night cycle, but Pidge was well adjusted to working only by the glow of her laptop. 

Which is where she was sitting when the door opened with a _woosh,_ disrupting her from her task.

She didn’t bother looking up right away. Why would she? If it was an invader, the alarms would go off, and if not then there was no threat. 

“What’cha working on there?” His words startled her, despite the fact that she had been expecting them. His voice was too loud in the otherwise nearly-silent room; it echoed shamelessly and grated her already frayed nerves. She turned to snap at him, only for the soft smile on his face to dissipate her rage.

“Homework,” Pidge replied instead, simply, softly. Lance may have been willing to push the silence away but she held far too much respect for it. She ignored his raised eyebrow and looked to her screen once more, tired eyes not-quite focused on the task.

“Homework?” Lance repeated after a few seconds, the cushions dipping as he plopped down next to her. “Why?” he pressed when she nodded silently. She shrugged.

“Why not?”

“We’re in space, fighting a war that’s been going on for longer than the human brain can comprehend. The odds that you will be required to hand this in are infinitesimally small, let alone the fact that you clearly weren’t even going to the Garrison for education. Given that, I think my question bears more weight than yours.” His words were still loud but they seemed to fill the room rather than take up space and Pidge found herself oddly comforted by his directness. She watched him without speaking for several seconds, which prompted him to speak. “So I ask again: why are you doing homework?”

She looked away, his gaze a paradox of intensity and nonchalance. She dropped her eyes to her hands, still hovering over the keyboard, and willed them to stop shaking. 

“Because I can,” she finally said, voice still too small to disturb the silence. She was tired of lying to these people she wanted to think of as friends, but the words held true enough. 

“Yeah, how is that anyway?” Lance shifted in her peripherals, leaning closer to squint at her screen. “That assignment is dated for a few months from now, how’d you even get access to it?”

Pidge shrugged again, though with a smug smirk this time. “I created an entirely new identity, in-depth enough to fool the most technologically-advanced borderline-military organization in the world, faked my own death in the process, managed to create my own equipment capable of not only listening to but decrypting space chatter and was able to scrap together a space-something geiger counter out of kitchen utensils with Hunk’s help.” 

“Impressive,” Lance said after a few moments of stunned silence. “But that doesn’t answer my question.” Pidge’s smirk grew. 

“I managed to do all that, do you really think it’s beyond my capabilities to hack my teachers’ computers? First day of classes I hacked in and copied all the homework so I could get it done early and focus on finding out what happened - what _really_ happened - on the Kerberos mission.”

“Wait. So you’re telling me you managed to get most of the homework done before we even learned about how to do the assignments?” 

“Well, not all of it. I needed to maintain a B average, good enough that I didn’t look like I needed extra help but not so good as to draw attention to myself, so it’s not like I already knew how to do all of it. But yeah, pretty much.” 

“You’re smart. Like, _really_ smart.”

“Yeah, I am. Computers and math and science and engineering, all that stuff comes pretty naturally to me. It’s easy. It’s just the way my brain works, I guess.”

Lance didn’t respond. Pidge kept her eyes on the computer and, as seconds grew to minutes, decided to start working again. It felt good, working on something she knew all the answers to, something that was familiar and didn’t really matter if she got it wrong, even though she wouldn’t. She tried to ignore the way Lance watched her. His gaze was unwavering, in a strangely introspective way, as though he was trying to pick her apart like a specimen in a lab while examining himself. 

The silence grew uncomfortable. Pidge was used to the quiet, used to late nights being the only one awake, used to finding the most deserted floor in the library to work, used to the only sound being the clacking of her keyboard or the scratching of her pencil and her own hushed breath. 

Lance, on the other hand, carried an energy of noise around him. Pidge would always be the first to admit that she’s not the best at reading people, but even she could tell that Lance and quiet did not go together. Not in an obnoxious way, just a way that seems _wrong,_ like you’re seeing something that shouldn’t be there. 

Pidge resisted the urge to squirm and broke the silence herself.

“What are you doing up so late, anyway?” Her voice came out louder than she meant for it, but it seemed to fill the room as Lance’s had. She cast a sideways glance at him, features thrown in sharp relief from the soft glow of her laptop. He quirked an eyebrow at her, not in question but the was one does before telling a bad joke.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I asked you first.”

“I’m older.”

“So?”

“I’m taller.”

“Bite me,” she retorted, threat significantly reduced by her giggling. 

“Well, since you asked so nicely…” Lance wiggled his eyebrows flirtatiously and leaned in. Pidge’s eyes widened in horror and she tried to back up without risking damaging her laptop. At the last moment, Lance pulled away. “I couldn’t sleep, decided to walk around the castle. It’ll be our home for a while, may as well get used to the layout. What?” he asked innocently at her dumbfounded expression. “You asked what I was doing up so late, and I told you.”

He held his face for another second then burst out laughing, a loud and obnoxious sound that Pidge felt herself pulled in to. Their laughter filled the air until it tapered off naturally, leaving the room with a much lighter silence than before. Lance smiled and Pidge offered a small one in return. 

Her smile faded quickly though, her mouth working soundlessly as she tried to get words out. She looked down at her hands, clenching them tightly into fists to keep them still. Her breath threatened to hitch in her chest but she stuffed it down. “Why couldn’t you sleep?” Pidge asked, grasping desperately for another topic, something to keep her mind from the dark paths it wanted to take. 

“Honest answer? I had to take a whizz. I always have a hard time getting back to sleep once I get up, so I figured I’d walk around a bit. I saw you in here, all alone, and figured you could use a friend.”

His words were kind but Pidge still flinched. Back at the Garrison, she had done everything in her power to avoid everyone, Lance and Hunk especially. She had seen others simply as obstacles in her path, blocking her from finding the truth. Even here, in space, she had done little to open up to anyone. The closest was when she told them she was actually a girl, but that was more because she was tired of being misgendered than anything else.

To hear him call her “friend” so easily had struck her with a wall of emotions she had not been expecting. 

Guilt, for not being kinder to him back on Earth.

Anger, because she had done nothing to deserve this kindness.

Fear, of getting close to anyone just to lose them again.

And too many others for her to name. 

Pidge said nothing in response. She kept her head down and took off her glasses - her brother’s glasses, all she had left of her family to hold on to - and twirled them between her fingers. 

Pidge had no doubt that Lance was picking up on her swirling emotions. That seemed to be his thing, that emotional depth and understanding under the flirty goofball exterior. Lance understood people the way Pidge understood computers, and Pidge was as good at hiding her emotions as she was at reading others’. 

She didn’t mean to start crying, but then again, she never did. Intentional or not, Pidge had felt far too exposed under Lance’s gentle gaze to keep herself under control and suddenly she was sobbing and he was holding her and her hands were gripping the glasses hard enough to hurt and she blurt out what she had been trying to say almost without meaning to but glad to have said it all the same.

“I’m doing homework because I can’t find my family and if I don’t do something I _can_ do then I’m going to explode or scream or something and-” Her breath hitched again, hard enough to hurt. The words stopped flowing as suddenly and uncontrollably as they had started, leaving Pidge feeling empty and defensive. 

Lance held her, tightly and silently. She was acutely aware that this was the most physical contact she had had with any of the team so far, excluding Shiro, and was torn between trying to embrace him back and pulling away. 

The latter instinct won out, and as soon as her breathing evened out, Pidge pulled away. Lance let her go with surprisingly little resistance. He kept a hand on her back until she shrugged it off, putting the glasses back on her face and wiping her eyes in the same motion. 

“Sorry,” she muttered, reaching for her laptop again. “Didn’t mean to dump all that on you.” She forced out a bitter chuckle in a vain attempt to play off her moment of weakness. 

Lance was still beside her, his lack of movement as _wrong_ as his previous silence. Pidge shifted away from him, adjusting herself carefully so that her laptop formed a makeshift barrier between them, and that the light reflecting off her glasses made sure he couldn’t see her eyes. 

The screen was blank. She couldn’t bring herself to focus again, but held on to the hope that if Lance thought she was fine and back to work, he would leave her alone. 

For a full minute, they sat like that. Lance, silent and still in a way someone like him was never meant to be; Pidge, fingers moving deftly but aimlessly over her keyboard, not blinking to keep her tears from spilling over. Then Lance reached over and pushed her laptop closed. Slowly, as though giving her permission to push back, he lifted it from her lap and put it on the table. 

“We’ll find them,” he said, taking her hands in his and giving her a gentle squeeze. “But they’ve taken care of themselves this long. They can wait a little longer.”

“What if they can’t?” Pidge hated how small her voice sounded, how weak, but couldn’t keep her thoughts to herself any longer. The fears that had plagued her for months dragged themselves up from the depth of her emotional well and laid themselves bare for Lance to see. “What if we’re already too late?”

To her amazement and slight anger, Lance laughed. 

“If they’re anything like you, Pidge, then they’re fine. If either of them are even half as stubborn as you are, then there’s no way that they’re not okay.” He smiled at her, genuine and comforting enough that Pidge felt the edges of her lips curl up too. “You’ll see.”

Pidge was silent for several moments. Her smile faded back to an uneasy frown, but her anxiety had lessened significantly. Slowly, she raised her gaze up to his and muttered a quiet but meaningful, “Thank you.”

“And, hey, until we find them, I could be your sit-in brother, if you want. I wouldn’t mind having a little sister again…” Lance trailed off when Pidge’s expression changed to horror. Not mock horror at the thought of being Lance’s sister, but actual shock and terror. 

“No!” she shouted. Then, calmer, “No, no thank you. Having another brother… it would feel like giving up on Matt. And I can’t. I just, I can’t. I’m sorry.” She was crying again, and pulled her hands from his to wipe them cry. 

“Oh, man, oh Pidge, no, that’s so not how I meant it. I’m so sorry,” Lance spluttered. 

“It’s okay. I know.” Her words were short and the two sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment, each seeming unsure how to continue. 

“I really-” Lance started.

“How about-” Pidge began at the same time. They both stopped and then giggled.

“You go,” Lance said. Pidge nodded.

“I don’t want a new brother. But I think I could really use a friend.” She looked up, sheepish, to see Lance beaming at her.

“Of course!” he said, loud and boisterous and so very Lance. Pidge smiled back at him, and opened her mouth to thank him again. 

An action which was promptly taken over by a massive yawn, reminding both of them just how late it was. When she opened her eyes again, Lance had a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Oh no.”

“Oh _yes_!” he countered. “Do you know what this means?”

“Do I want to?”

“A SLEEPOVER!” Lance leapt up, already halfway to the door before Pidge knew what was happening. “Wait right here, I’m going to go get blankets and pillows and snacks and Hunk, because last time I had a sleepover without him, he…” The door closed behind Lance, leaving Pidge alone but feeling far less lonely than she had since her family first left on their mission. 

Realising just how tired she was, she leaned back and closed her eyes to wait for Lance to return.

She woke up a few hours later, tucked tightly under a nest of blankets, with Hunk and Lance sprawled over each other a short distance away, dead asleep, and with snacks, pillows and blankets scattered around the room. 

Pidge smiled, and left herself drift back to sleep, comforted by the presence of her friends around her.

**Author's Note:**

> Writeblr blog: @silverssideblog  
> Discord: cloudcover#7167


End file.
